With a tighter web of surveillance cast on
family members of defectors since Kim Jong Un ascended to power, North Korea is
now using a more varied network of people to spy on others and crackdown on
potential escapees, Daily NK has learned.
“The State Security Department [SSD] has
ordered tighter surveillance on defector families recently, so authorities are
using more cunning methods to monitor them,” a source in Yangkang Province told
Daily NK on Monday. “Up until now, they had used members of the Chosun
Democratic Women’s Union or inminban [people’s unit] leaders to monitor people,
but seeing this didn’t completely cut off escapes, they’ve been drawing from an
entirely different pool of people.”
These candidates run the gamut, encompassing everyone from vendors to homeless people to day laborers, he said. In
the case of people on their special watchlist, officials would even go as far as
using friends of children with escaped family members.
“Security officials are always spiteful
about defector families who are better off than they are despite having less
power than them,” the source said. “Since their goal is to penalize them using whatever
instruments are out there, they’re even willing to use friends of children
within these defector families to do so.”
The source asserted a “new surveillance
web” is being created for defector families using ordinary people. This is
because most families with escapees already know they are being watched, so
authorities are trying to introduce new faces that will slink around and
monitor with less chance of detection.
“Defector families all know that usually
it’s security or safety officials, inminban leaders and women’s union members
leading the surveillance operation, so they act with caution when people like
them are present,” said the source, explaining why the SSD is taking a more
creative approach in its perpetual bid to keep the population locked inside the
country.
According to defector families with whom
the source has spoken, all agreed that an unknown vendor appearing at the door
is more likely than not a surveillance agent poised to probe about family
members who have escaped the South.
“To these family members who have lived
under the state’s surveillance, it’s so very clear what officials are trying to
do,” he pointed out.
However, as surveillance tactics become
more advanced, so then do residents’ tactics to evade them. “The state’s efforts simply provide people with more reasons to devise
more innovative ways to evade surveillance,” he asserted.
